Luna Lovegood and the Chamber of Secrets
by GeorgeMcFlurry
Summary: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in the perspective of Luna Lovegood. She doesn't come into the actual books until the fifth book, but she's my favourite character, so I'm writing about her first year.


Luna stared dreamily down at her Hogwarts letter. "Daddy, looks like I'm not a Squib after all," she called down the stairs, almost unaffected. Her curious eyes scanned over the letter. She'd never seen one before, but it was the same uninteresting sort of thing she thought it might be.

Her long, pale blonde hair fell over the letter as she leaned over it, intently reading now. She was curious; wizard children didn't go to school at all until they were eleven years old, so all that Luna knew was her rook-shaped house and her father with his magazine. Of course, once she'd had her mother as well. She pushed down the pain that accompanied that thought and continued to read the letter.

"Daddy," she called again, running down the stairs with her letter. "We need to go to Diagon Alley."

"Really?" he inquired, looking at her with his one fully functional eye.

"Really," Luna said proudly.

++one month later++

Luna sat down in a seat in the Hogwarts Express. The only other person in her compartment was a short girl about her age with long red hair.

"Hi," she said to Luna, smiling.

"Hello," Luna replied. "I'm Luna Lovegood."

"Your name sounds familiar," the red-haired girl said, frowning.

"Maybe you've heard of my father," Luna suggested. "He runs a rather well-known newspaper, the _Quibbler_?"

"Oh, Xenophilius!" the girl cried. "He lives not far from me, actually – you must live there, too! I live in a place called the Burrow – my name is Ginny Weasley." She giggled nervously and said, changing the subject, "Oh my goodness, did you know Harry Potter's in the year above us?"

"Yeah," Luna said, "I haven't seen him anywhere though, and you'd think he'd be very easy to spot."

"He was staying at my _house_," Ginny giggled. "It's crazy; did you know we get Lockhart as a teacher too?" She laughed a little harder. "He's so old, but my mum is completely obsessed with him."

"He should be on the train, then? Harry Potter?" Luna asked curiously.

"I haven't seen him or my brother, Ron, but they're probably on the other side of the train," Ginny said a little indifferently.

Luna was a little curious about Harry Potter, but she didn't mind. She would have a chance to see him for the next six years.

"He's so dreamy," Ginny was saying, "I can't believe he was staying in my house."

She took a deep breath and chose another subject. "Which house do you want to be in? I want to be in Gryffindor."

"I want to be in Ravenclaw, like my family," Luna explained.

"Cool," Ginny said. Looking at Luna's one carry-on bag, she asked, "What have you got?"

Luna removed a large claw from her bag. "Daddy found it over the summer," she announced. "It's from a real dragon. Daddy says they're misunderstood."

Ginny smiled. "That's an interesting point of view," she said. "I never thought of it that way, but I suppose dragons could have allergies and simply sneeze fire all over everything."

Luna laughed and high-fived Ginny. She seemed like she could make a very good best friend.

++a few hours later++

"All right, first-years!" Penelope Clearwater, the female Ravenclaw prefect, called out. "Welcome to Ravenclaw."

Luna fidgeted nervously. Ginny had gotten into Gryffindor, and now she didn't know anyone here.

"There's something you all should know about," Penelope added. "Towards the end of last year, Ravenclaws – and only Ravenclaws – were getting these coded notes. They said that something bad was going to happen this year, and – they said horrible things about the receivers of the notes. We've been trying to be vigilant about it, but there's not much we can do. Do not stress, but if you get a message, report it. And do not break any rules while trying to 'solve' this. We are Ravenclaw, and we are model students. Understood? Thank you. Go to your dorms."

Everyone else went to their dorms, but Luna held back. "Penelope," she asked, "who got notes?"

Penelope's hands shook. "It was me, my friend Alice, and a few other people who would prefer not to be named. They really freaked us out."

"What sorts of things were said in the letter?" Luna asked, curious. "You said they said horrible things –"

"That's enough, go to your dormitory!" Penelope snapped, suddenly angry. "And mind your own business in future!"

Luna's eyes grew huge and she sprinted up the stairs to her dormitory.

++three months later++

It was December, and the letters were proving true. A cat and a first-year boy in Gryffindor had been attacked and just – _frozen_. That would make a decent name for a movie, _Frozen_, Luna thought, and started to plan what it would be like in her head. After a few minutes she scrapped the idea. That would be a _terrible _movie.

"Luna," Ginny called, sitting down next to her. It was a Saturday morning, and so Luna was sitting in the library, composing her own – and better – version of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

"Hello, Ginny," Luna said, thinking for a moment and then adding a little note about the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. "I've been thinking, and remember what I told you about the Ravenclaws getting letters? I assume it has to do with the Chamber of Secrets. I've been reading about it, and apparently the heir of Slytherin –" She stopped right there. "Do you feel all right?" Ginny had turned chalk white.

"Oh – yeah," Ginny said, turning back to a reasonable colour.

"Did you know the boy who was frozen?" Luna asked politely.

"No," Ginny said.

"Oh. I thought, seeing as you're in the same house –"

"Well, you and I are _not _in the same house, and we talk quite a bit," Ginny challenged.

"All right, all right," Luna said, "I was just wondering."

"He's obsessed with Harry Potter," Ginny laughed, "always wants to take his picture."

"He could take a picture of them together and pin it up on his wall, that's a decent thing to do with celebrities," Luna suggested.

"Wow, one day they should really invent a camera that lets you take pictures of yourself," Ginny said.

"It could be attached to a telephone," Luna mused. Snapping out of it, she said, "Anyway."

"I'm supposed to be doing a Potions essay," Ginny sighed, "but I really don't want to. Thank you for distracting me, by the way."

"If I were you, I wouldn't want to be bothered," Luna said.

"No, but I'm not exactly what you'd call normal, am I," Ginny sighed. "I'm the quiet little sister of all the prodigies, the jokers, and we're not sure what to label Ron just yet – we're leaning towards pushover, though."

Luna laughed. "I don't think I'm very normal either," she admitted. "I like to think I'm just open-minded."

"You are quite open-minded. Stay this way, Luna," Ginny advised her friend, before starting to write her essay.

Luna made a personal resolution to take Ginny's advice. There was no use changing into someone who followed the crowd. Sometimes Luna had dreams where everyone else she knew were robots, walking in the same rhythms, in the same direction, at the same pace. Only she was human, darting in between them, trying to follow but getting hit and falling, unable to match their movements. It was pretty awful, but it would be worse to be one of the robots.

"You too," Luna replied. "Stay this way; it's the way you are."

"Some people don't like me this way," Ginny sighed, drawing a swirl design in the margin. Luna softly moved Ginny's hand and erased the drawing with her wand; the other day Professor Snape had loudly reprimanded Ginny for doodling on her papers, reducing her to tears.

"Look, whoever it is that doesn't like you this way has peanuts for a brain."

"Thanks, Luna." Ginny violently launched her parchment into her bag. "I'm done with work. I'm taking a nice nap."

"I'll walk back with you," Luna offered, putting her book into her bag.

As they walked, they admired the Christmas decor. It was only early December, but the decor fit the festive mood well. As they passed the Great Hall, they could hear singing from inside. Someone was singing Christmas carols in there.

"Is that the choir?" Luna wondered.

"No, it's Anna," Ginny said. "She's in my house. She's quite the singer."

Luna tapped her foot to a few bars of a song she didn't know, probably a Muggle song.

"Come on, let's go," Ginny said. Nudging Luna, she said, "And by the way, I meant what I said before. Do not ever change yourself. Swear on it."

"I swear that I will never change myself to follow the crowd," Luna said easily. She would not.

"Swear it on something you care about a lot."

"I swear it on my father's life and my mother's ghost and on Rowena Ravenclaw's legacy and on you."

This pleased Ginny; she smiled and hugged her friend. "I swear on everything I've ever cared about that we will be friends forever," she said.


End file.
